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US 7,617,094 B2Granted
Methods, apparatus, and products for identifying a conversation
AssigneePalo Alto Research Center Incorporated
InventorsPaul M. Aoki, Margaret H. Szymanski, James D. Thornton, Daniel H. Wilson, Allison G. Woodruff
Life of this patent
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Abstract
One aspect of the invention is a method of using a computer to identify a conversation. Another aspect is a method for an audio processing system that identifies conversations and enhances each conversation for each user in the conversation.
Claims18
A computer controlled method of identifying a conversation, comprising:
- monitoring a plurality of conversational communications that each occur electronically between a plurality of users;
- extracting a plurality of streams of feature data from the conversational communications during a communicative interval between the conversational communications;
- analyzing said streams of feature data for different combinations of said users in possible conversational configurations during said same communicative interval and assigning a probability to each of the possible conversational configurations;
- determining a most probable conversational configuration from the possible conversational configurations based on the probability;
- and
- identifying a conversation involving two or more of said users based on the most probable conversational configuration.
3 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- a monitor mechanism that monitors a plurality of conversational communications that each occur electronically between a plurality of users;
- a extraction mechanism that extracts a plurality of streams of feature data from the conversational communications during a communicative interval between the conversational communications;
- an analysis mechanism, as controlled by the extraction mechanism, that analyzes said streams of feature data for different combinations of said users in possible conversational configurations during said same communicative interval and further configured to assign a probability to each of the possible conversational configurations;
- a determination mechanism that determines a most probable conversational configuration from the possible conversational configurations based on the probability;
- and
- an identification mechanism that identifies a conversation involving two or more of said users based on the most probable conversational configuration.
3 more elements
A computer-readable storage medium encoded with computer program code to be executed by a computer system, the computer executable program code comprising a method that:
- monitors a plurality of conversational communications that each occur electronically between a plurality of users;
- extracts a plurality of streams of feature data from the conversational communications during a communicative interval between the conversational communications;
- analyzes, as controlled by the code for extracting, said streams of feature data for different combinations of said users in possible conversational configurations during said same communicative interval and code for assigning a probability to each of the possible conversational configurations;
- determines a most probable conversational configuration from the possible conversational configurations based on the probability;
- and
- identifies a conversation involving two or more of said users based on the most probable conversational configuration.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.